Being Human
by I Am Slowly Losing Wars
Summary: This is how an angel falls. Only, Castiel is falling too hard. He's dying, slowly, painfully, and the Winchesters know it. This is one man they cannot save... AU where Zachariah is still alive after the boys ice the Devil, and Crowley is the king of Hell.
1. Chapter 1

Dean notices that Cas eats with them. That is the first sign.

Dean watches Castiel devour things with unrelenting ferocity, like a starving lion on top of a gazelle, burgers, sandwiches, ribs, fries, salads, anything put in front of him, down the hatch it goes.

And Dean listens to him throw it up soon after, in the bathroom, behind a locked door. Dean has taken to sitting outside the bathroom on the grubby carpets of their motels whenever Castiel goes in, listening for retching and choking. He closes his eyes and listens to the angel… _ex-_angel, cough and sputter, breathing hard.

And whenever Castiel comes out, vomit on his breath, Dean asks if he is OK.

He never says anything but yes.

xXx

Castiel begins riding in the Impala without asking.

No one tells him he needs to find his own wheels. They invite him in, let them into their mobile home of a classic car. He sits in the backseat, hands folded on his lap contently, looking blankly out the window. Sometimes he closes his eyes, and Sam swears the angel… _ex-angel _Sam reminds himself, is imagining that the wind from the open window is wind Castiel is flying through.

'How are you doing back there Cas?' Sam says one day, twisting in the seat to look at their blue-eyed passenger.

He sees Castiel fast asleep, a flicker of drool seeping onto the seat, hair flapping in dangerous spears on the wind. Dean looks at him, Sam looks back, eyes wide, mouth a thin and sinister line.

'He's falling.' Dean says, and Sam hears the thickness in his voice, the hitch in his brother's throat.

For Dean, the words are glass.

For Sam, the words are painful

For Castiel? He can't hear them. He is dreaming of a garden, with blooming yellow daisies and flourishing red roses, snapdragons and deep lilacs. There are bees, and dragonflies and sunshine. Castiel is warm, and happy.

This is the first dream he ever has.

xXx

'Dean what are we gonna do?' Sam asks, rubbing his hands over his eyes, groaning. He has a headache.

Inside the motel, Castiel is asleep on a bed, tightly nestled underneath the covers, snuggling a pillow. They had to carry him in, like a parent might carry a sleeping child to bed.

'What we have to.' Dean says, downing his… 5th?... beer, his head not yet heavy enough to buy him a one way ticket to Dreamsville. The parking lot is empty, the only noise if the shiny cars whispering bouncing lights to each other.

'Yeah, but Dean what does that mean?' Sam is getting angry, his fists are clenching. He is angry at Castiel for falling in such a way, angry at Dean for absently and mindlessly watching.

'That means we take him to Bobby's. Figure things out there.'

'And what? Stop hunting? Take care of him while he changes to human? Hold his hair back while he spews everything he eats into the toilet? He isn't a child Dean!'

Behind them, the door to the motel room opens and a tired looking Castiel blinks up at them sleepily. He looks small and childish and exhausted.

'Hey Cas.' Dean says, taking a few steps closer. He's using his 'child-voice', the one he uses on kids in distress. 'What are you doing up?'

Castiel looks at him blearily. 'I heard talking. It woke me up.' He rubs his eyes with the back of his hand, sniffing.

'Go back to bed. Sleep some more, we'll try to keep it down.'

Castiel's head bobs up and down and he stumbles back to the bed, flopping down like the hard mattress is Heaven. Dean closes the door with a soft click.

'Bobby's place in the morning. I'll call ahead to see if it's OK if we crash there for a little while. But, please, Sammy, help me out with this one. I think something bigger is wrong with him. I think he's falling too hard.'

Sam nods stiffly, eyes peeking through the open blinds to see Castiel shift in his sleep.

Sam wonders if Dean will share the bed with the angel… Sam sighs… _ex_-angel…

xXx

**AN: What do you guys think? Should I keep going? Let me know!**


	2. Chapter 2

They start driving to Bobby's in the morning. It seems like the only logical thing to do.

Bobby's house means dust and cars and junk and books and panic rooms and protection wards. It means answers and whiskey and help and bacon and bad coffee and safety. But it also means home.

Cas sleeps in the back of the car, a blanket they stole from the hotel tangled around his legs, breath puffing warm foggy clouds on the closed window. It's raining outside. Drops slide down the glass like tears, clear grey spatters that refract the view of the stormy and churning sky.

Dean is worried. Castiel was running a low fever when they left, and he puked up his measly breakfast of watery gas station coffee and donuts. Something in his eyes has dulled, they are not the Ice Flow Blue they were before, but a duller, greyer shade of opal. Like his Grace was the only thing keeping the blue so vivid.

Dean listens to his angel… Dean sighs and kicks himself mentally… _ex-angel_ 's teeth chatter, so he turns the heater in the car up until smoky hot air if fanning his face gently.

'Anna didn't fall this hard.' Says Sam, thumbing through Dad's Journal, looking for anything that might help their dark passenger, though this is the third time he's read the text cover to cover with no avail.

'Yeah, well, Glenn Close didn't completely rebel. And her Grace wasn't shredded to bits like Cas's was.' Dean shudders as he remembers Zachariah thrusting his hand into Castiel's chest, remembers the searing light and Castiel's screams, and his helplessness.

He can remember the shadow of the angel's wings on the wall, as they were ripped, feathers manifesting and falling softly to the ground while orange trails burned away the fibers of ebony dander and down. He remembers Zachariah's manic joy at the sight of the feather rain. But most of all, Dean remembers Castiel falling to the floor, blood sliding between his clenched teeth, body racked with shivers, pitiful moans escaping past his lips.

Dean shakes his head, wiping the memories away. He doesn't want that in his head.

'I'm gonna torch Zachariah in Holy Oil.' Dean promises, smirking over at Sam, who nods his approval, frowning..

'He was only following orders.' Comes a new, gravel deep voice.

Sam turns around as he hears Castiel's weak voice, and Dean's eyes flash up at the rear view mirror.

'Wait, you're not telling me you aren't pissed at the guy? You aren't itching for a little revenge?'

Dean sees Castiel nudge his head against the window, eyes sliding shut again, jaw lax, hands slipping as he pulls the blanket tighter around himself.

'He didn't have a choice.' Comes a muffled whisper.

And then Castiel, goes still.

Sam feels his skin prickle. This is getting bad. Angels don't sleep, angels don't eat and angels don't puke themselves dry. Nor do they, _Castiel of all, _ break off a creepy stare.

Ex-angel, Sam reminds himself sullenly, looking back at the road.

Ex…

xXx

They drive for three days straight. They stop at cheaper than cheap motels for quick 4 hour naps while Cas snoozes in the car. Dean doesn't want to stop, for food, or for sleep, or for bathroom breaks, like he thinks getting Castiel off the road and into the stuffy blanket of life at Bobby's will help him.

The eldest Winchester is worried about how much Castiel is sleeping. He averages 19 hours a day, with small wakeful moments before gliding back into dreams.

But Sam is more worried about why Castiel can't keep any food down. They have tried everything, the most non-offensive foods they know, from non-salted crackers to chicken noodle soup, and everything stays with Cas for little more than thirty minutes before parting ways with his stomach. And it shows. Castiel is weak, has trouble standing, stumbles sometimes when he walks.

'He's dying.' Sam tells Dean when they both flop onto springy beds in a one shot motel, so many miles added onto their bones that they feel jetlagged.

Dean just blinks, watching flies flit around on the ceiling, before turning over and burrowing into the mattress, the clicking of the ceiling fan the only noise in the room.

Sam knows that Dean's silence and refusal to talk about it is his brother's way of agreeing.

xXx

'Cas? You OK in there?'

'I'm fine, Dean.'

Dean turns the knob, it's open, for once. He pushes inside to see the claustrophobically small bathroom, with friendly floral wallpaper, a big round mirror and a tarnished sink tap. Cas is sitting cross-legged, bent over the toilet, green as a toad, eyes crossed, lips just about falling off of his face.

'Dean I-'

He doesn't get the message across before the fried egg and ham slice he stole from Dean's diner breakfast plate crash and splash into the toilet, the rank and toxic smell of sewage and digestion making Dean's own stomach churn. Cas is covered in sweat, shining like fast food fry cook, face screwed up as his stomach cramps and he dry heaves.

Dean sits down behind him and rubs his back soothingly. 'S'okay Cas. Let it out.'

Bile shoots into the toilet, and beneath Dean's hand, Castiel shivers.

'Is this what being human is like?' Cas heaves again, ' So bright and hot and tiring and sweaty and…' Cas hangs his head.

'Painful?' Dean finishes the sick man's sentence, hand rubbing his friend's shoulder.

Castiel nods jerkily.

Dean just keeps massaging Castiel's shoulders, doesn't answer while Cas drools into the toilet. He doesn't want to tell Cas that something else is happening to him.

Because how exactly do you tell someone what they think is normal, is actually the opposite of what they should feel?

They stay like that, on the floor in the bathroom, until Cas says he's tired and Dean helps him to the bed. He pulls off Castiel's shoes and flips him on his side. And when he turns to leave, Cas catches his wrist and huffs out an exhausted 'Stay.'

And Dean does. Dean crawls into bed with the ex-angel_, there damn it he said it, _and they curl around each other, until Castiel snores out soft breaths into the crook of Dean's neck, his arms wrapped around Dean's waist, hair tickling Dean's chin.

In the bed next to them, Sam lies awake. Whereas Castiel can't stop sleeping, Sam can't get any. This is the third night he hasn't slept, and each night, his mind whirs and whizzes from one thing to the next, but no matter what, his thoughts return to the ex-angel curled around his brother.

This isn't just an angel falling, no, something bigger is going on. He isn't just becoming human.

Sam kicks off his bed covers and tiptoes over to the other bed, slipping his hand gently over Castiel's forehead, sneaking a feel at his temperature. He feels like a concerned mother for doing it, and it makes his insides feel slick and sticky. Where did the old Dean and Sam Winchester go?

But he lets those thoughts float away like hot air balloons. His heart sinks a fraction. A thought hits him, and he swallows painfully.

The fever has increased.

Castiel's not just falling.

He's _burning._

**AN: So, this is obviously going to turn into a bit of a Destiel fic. I won't be slashing too hard though, so don't expect anything too glorious and smutty. In other news, I can officially **_**not**_** guarantee a happy ending. That doesn't mean there will be a sad ending, but that there might not be a 'Happily ever after' at the end of this story. Thanks for those who reviewed the previous chapter, and please leave one on your way out! I love hearing from readers!**


	3. Chapter 3

Castiel barely tells them they need to pullover before he spews on the side of the road. He throws himself into the gravel dirt, convulses and heaves.

Sam looks out at the sad scene from the passenger seat. Dean looks straight ahead.

They stay like that for 5 minutes, long enough for Dean to get out and help a shivering Castiel back into the car.

They drive for another 3 hours before Castiel says they need to stop again.

XxX

Bobby wasn't expecting his adoptive sons and their guardian to look quite so… raw. When they finally stumble in at 3AM, weary eyed and stiff, Bobby barely recognizes them.

Sam, despite his size, looks weak and small, his eyes glazed and tired. His hair falls limply into his face, and his jaw relaxes too much to be used for talking.

Castiel is frail. He's thinner, greyer, his trench coat looks even bigger than it already is on him, and he's pale, too pale, with a thin film of sweat on his brow so shiny it looks like his head is Saran-Wrapped. He says a brief and weighty hello to Bobby before leaning against Sam, shoulders sagging. Sam looks up at Bobby uncomfortably.

And Dean? Dean is a wreck. His short cropped hair is greasy from days without a shower, his eyes are red rimmed and sunken from what looks like days of driving and days with no sleep.

'Look what Hell dragged in from the yard.' Bobby says. No one laughs.

Cas looks up at Dean, swipes a hand over his eyes and sniffs, 'Can I go to bed now?'

Bobby wants to let his jaw drop right to the floor.

Since when is Dean the mother of a 4 year-old angel?

Dean looks at Bobby earnestly and snakes a hand onto Cas's shoulder from behind. 'Bobby, you got somewhere he can crash?'

It takes a moment for Bobby to come out of his shell shock.

'Y-yeah. How do you feel about the panic room Castiel?'

'Thank you, Robert.' Comes the sigh.

Cas brushes by him, eyelids flickering, stumbling a bit over his feet, grabbing Bobby's shoulder for support, nearly yanking Bobby to the ground with him. Dean rushes to the ex-angels side, flips an arm over his shoulder and half-carries, half-helps Castiel down the stairs.

Bobby's insides feel greasy and leaden. He looks to Sam, who stands in the doorway.

'I know.' Sam chuffs, 'They've been like that ever since Zachariah stole Cas's grace.' Bobby goes to the kitchen and pulls out a few beers, tossing one to Sam who catches it tactfully, dropping to the couch like a bowling ball.

'Is Dean gonna start driving him to soccer soon too? Gonna cut his sandwich into triangles, not squares?' Bobby growls, swigging the beer violently. Sam shrugs, smirking.

This is wrong, Bobby thinks. Dean and Sam are hunters, hardwired to squash complaining in its tracks, bred and born to shoot and slice and burn. Hunters don't carry people. They either drag their friends bruised and bloody, or flip their bodies over their shoulders, but they don't carry. And these two are carrying Castiel.

'So what were you two idjits planning on doing for him?'

Sam closes his eyes, pinches his nose, leans back into the couch like it's the softest thing. He lets out a roaring sigh.

'I don't even know. He's dying Bobby, like, actually this time. Like, burning. Maybe slipping into a coma, I don't know anymore.'

Bobby considers Sam for a moment, then grabs a book, tossing it to Sam.

'Look in there, see if you find anything.'

Bobby knows Sam will come up empty handed. It's a random book, nothing worth a quarter is in it, but he knows Sam needs to feel like he's doing something. They both need to feel like they're doing something, both Winchester boys.

They can't stay here. They can't mother Castiel.

'Get out.'

Sam looks startled. 'Why? What did I say?'

'No I mean, get out, as in go hunting. There's a vampire nest not far from here that I was meaning to empty out. I can hold down the fort with Castiel while you two let off some steam.' Bobby doesn't exactly like the idea, but he knows that it's for the best.

Because that's what hunters do, isn't it? Make sacrifices?

Dean wobbles upstairs and flops onto the couch beside Sam. 'He's down for the night.' Dean breathes out.

Maybe down for the count too, Bobby thinks grimly…


	4. Chapter 4

Dean sleeps beside Castiel in the panic room.

He quickly becomes accustom to the frigid air of the cellar and the warm touch of skin on skin, the blush of heat from the blankets, the puff of air from Castiel that blooms on the skin of his exposed shoulder. Sometimes Castiel's nose bumps Dean's as they face each other, a gentle nudge that almost seems intimate.

Dean wonders where the old Dean Winchester went…

XxX

Sam and Dean clean out the vampire nest in 3 hours.

And in those 3 hours, Hell raises its ugly head and tears at their reality when Castiel has a seizure.

Bobby watches him fall to the ground and convulse in the yard while the old hunter works on a car. Froth bubbles at the ex-angel's throat, and the black-haired man gargles and moans, muscles freezing and relaxing, freezing and relaxing, while teeth clench and grind and a bladder lets go.

Bobby makes sure to remove Castiel's tie before standing guard over the scene, wrist watch timing and ticking like a metal heartbeat against Bobby's racing pulse. The whole time, Castiel looks at Bobby, blue eyes wild with terror and pleading while he jerks and convulses on the ground, hair shining in the too-hot sun.

How do humans live like this? Bobby can almost hear him say.

The seizure lasts a minute and a half. Bobby checks Castiel's fever while the angel vomits bile on the dry grass ground.

He calls Dean while Cas lies down on the couch, cold cloth draped over his eyes in a feeble attempt to keep the fever down.

In the 15 minutes it takes for Sam and Dean to race over to Bobby's place, Bobby finds out through hacked medical files that Jimmy Novak was epileptic.

He sends Sam out to get medication, fake prescription in tow while Dean sits down and runs fumbling fingers through the ex-angel's hair shakily.

It occurs to Bobby very suddenly that Dean and Castiel, are an item.

XxX

Castiel falls into something of a routine while at Bobby's house. He wakes up, he eats, he pukes, he takes his epilepsy medication, barely keeps the pills down, goes for a walk, comes back, eats, pukes, naps 'til midnight, eats, pukes, and sleeps again.

There is barely anytime for talking.

Dean barely sees the guy anymore, unless he's asleep, because all the ex-angel (Dean always kicks himself for thinking it) does is sleep.

Dean is planning a slow day of giving the Impala a tune up she doesn't need, when Sam carries an unconscious Castiel in through the back door of Bobby's place, bumping the door open with his hip.

'He ripped his head open when he fell on some junk in the yard.'

Dean feels his heart tear in two at sight of all the blood.

'Dean,' Sam catches Dean's arm when his older brother heads for the door, 'Where are you going? He needs you.'

'I'm gonna go get his damn Grace back.' Dean barks, before the door clatters shut behind him.

XxX

Dean summons Gabriel in the barn where he first summoned Castiel.

Gabriel seems like the only one powerful enough to pull something like this off, and he seems to have the least of a vendetta for the family Winchester.

The Trickster arrives softly, behind Dean, who has his holy oil cocktail at the ready. The only thing that announces the archangel's arrival is the sparking of the overhead lights.

'You wanna put down the Bible Bomb, maybe?' Gabriel's smile is sinister and sly from where he leans against the barn door. Dean huffs and lowers his throwing stance.

'I heard about what old Zacky Wacky did to my younger brother.' Gabriel throws his hands into his pockets, 'Poor guy. Zachariah held his Grace up for example before he fed it to the other seraphs.'

'Zachariah pulled a Hannibal? Geez, and I thought I'd met some weirdos…'

The lights flicker, Gabriel's eyes narrow.

'Watch it human. That's my younger brother you're talking about.'

'Fix Cas.' The air stiffens. Dean's order floats on the air between them, A rising feeling is creeping into Dean's chest, something primal he hasn't felt for a very long time. Gabriel cocks his head to the side like a dog sniffing the air, and it's such a Cas move that Dean wants to curl up and beg forever for Gabriel to fix the angel.

Gabriel shakes his head angrily.

'Do it.' Dean growls.

'Watch your tone, hunter.'

Gabriel's eyes flash white, the room rumbles, sigils painted on the walls from so long ago disappear, fear rips through Dean's heart with the force of a stampeding bull, fear so crushing, heart twisting that he falls to the floor, his muscles lock, he throws his hands over his ears as Gabriel's vessel emits lion roars that echo like thunder through the barn. Pressure builds inside Dean's chest.

The shadows of wings unfold on the walls, watercolor stains of feathers that are there, just beyond his plain of vision. Gabriel's wings are bigger than Castiel's were.

Gabriel's face is a mixture of sadistic entertainment and rage.

'I am not your lackey. I am not your consultant. Your angel boyfriend broke the rules and now he has pay the price.'

'That doesn't mean killing him!' Dean yells at the archangel, stumbling to his feet.

'What it means is teaching him a lesson his Alter Boy ass won't forget.'

'All I'm asking you to do is lessen the damage. You're an archangel! You of all people should be able to do it!' Frustration begins burning inside the pit of Dean's stomach like jet fuel. He wants to beat the angel to a pulp, and Dean finds himself searching for any sign of sadness or nuance in the vessel's furrowed brow.

Dean begins looking for a human in behind the carefully whittled and carved mask of white light and black feathers.

Dean finds no humanity in places where usually it is tattooed.

Gabriel shifts and rolls his body like a feral animal's, impatience like a coiled spring in every stiff and careful movement.

'I can't give him back his Grace. And I am sure as sugar not going to put any angel parts back in him. He's fried, and he's going to fry more.' Gabriel starts playing with the cuff of his jacket while Dean is pacing, the shadow of his wings curl back in on themselves.

'When an angel falls, shockwaves rip through Heaven. And those transmit to Hell. And when you lose your Grace, the only thing keeping you… _pure_… Hell decides it's gonna ride you piggyback, catch my drift? You're talkin' to the wrong bird here.'

'So I need to talk to Crowley?'

Gabriel shrugs, and twists around the barn door, into the now falling rain. 'I'd start there!' He calls back from the night.

XxX

Dean doesn't see Cas on his way to the shower. The hunter, now starting to feel older than he is, got caught in the torrential downpour he thinks that Gabriel caused, and his body shivers involuntarily beneath his wet clothes.

Dean thinks that it's not very practical to keep Castiel in the panic room. There are too many stairs for him to fall down, to many levels between him and the kitchen, too many between him and where the others frequent.

But then again, nothing in Dean's life seems very practical anymore.

Dean realizes, as he tosses his T-shirt into the sink with a wet slosh, that angels are like moons.

Zachariah is waxing while Castiel wanes…


	5. Chapter 5

There is the familiar warmth of Castiel in the morning, always. He is a haze of heat in the early hours, a dull and pulsating calmness that folds itself over Dean like a blanket.

Dean wants to weave this tendril of heat and closeness into his jacket, wants to memorize the scent of this luxury, this smoky, dusty body that is flat against his chest. He wonders how he ever survived on the cold rations and midnight cool sheets that his string of One Night Stands awarded him, and he realizes too quickly into his relationship with Castiel (if you could call it that) that he has forgotten what it feels like to be cold.

The ex-angel and the hunter commit the other's slopes and dips and curves and edges to memory, as if by holding onto to such artistic and futile details will mean that the 'relationship' may continue.

This of course, means nothing.

The heat of Castiel is also present as he bends and pulls and cramps over a bucket, or on the ground, and one can feel the sweat and the fever flush of warmth even between all the layers that ride Castiel like suckers ride shark bellies.

Dean often presses his hand to Castiel's back while he vomits. He has noticed how Castiel relaxes and sighs into the soft pressure that reassures him of Dean's comforting presence.

Dean often has to remind himself at times like these, that Castiel is as similar to him as Earth is to Saturn.

Castiel has been alive since the dawn of time, seen humans rise, seen creation freeze and seen war turn friendships into hatreds too profound to be undone.

And Dean? Dean has a string of One Night Stands so long, if you stretch it out, it'll circle the world.

But in all that time, he's never known this kind of heat.

This… this warmth and fire boiling in Castiel's veins?

It's Hellfire.

XxX

'Bit late for visit, isn't it darling?' Crowley paces the Devil's Trap, a bat in the darkness of the barn.

'Cut the crap Crowley. You know what I want.' Dean growls.

Crowley looks up, cruel smirk pulling his face apart, splitting his skin.

'Ahh… You want Hell to stop chasing your fine feathered friend… Or should I say, boyfriend?' Crowley winks.

'Call the dogs off Cas, or I stab you in the face with this.' Dean holds up Ruby's knife, let's the barn lights catch the sheen of the blade.

Crowley is not impressed, holds his head higher, stops his pacing, squares his shoulders, sets his jaw. His eyes flash their true shade of crimson, crossroad blood clearly boiling.

'You think a toothpick like that is going to perturb a man like me? Please, Dean. I'm a king and a salesman.' Crowley smiles wider.

'You… want me to make a deal?' Dean is taken aback.

'In a manner of speaking.'

''m not selling my soul for this.'

'It's not your soul I'm after.'

Dean cocks his head to the side, surveying Crowley. The demon is all whiskey-slick hands and tailored suit tails, all grandeur and charisma and British values. The King of Hell remains as stoic as always.

Noticing Dean's confusion, Crowley sighs heavily. 'I want full Crossroads Demon immunity. You let us continue our deals_ undisturbed _and I can give you a time frame.'

'Time frame of what?'

'How long your angel friend has left.'

'No. Call Hell off of Cas, completely.'

Crowley throws his hands in the air in frustration.

'Dean! Please! You of all people should know that Hell has a mind of its own. I just work there. When a Holy creature becomes an absence, Hell becomes interested. Such a gospel and pure creature as our friend Castiel, has Hell's undivided attention. He's fallen from Grace, and now he's falling into the flames.'

Dean doesn't know what to do. He runs a hand through his hair, takes fevered steps around the barn, tries to breathe away the clenching feeling in his chest. There is no option in Dean's mind, no way around this. Simply stabbing Crowley won't fix his problems, although that's the way he wishes he could go.

Finally he says: 'Where do I sign?'

The contract seems to go on forever. It is a sea and a turbulence of 'sign here' and 'here' and 'initial here'. When all is said and done Crowley curls the parchment and tucks it into his coat pocket, and the air of professionalism and finality the contract seems to give Castiel's fate is heart shattering and world teetering.

'I'm not kissing you.' Dean croaks.

'We'll settle it with a handshake then.'

Dean is unwilling to let his hand wander over the Devil's Trap. Crowley's hand is freezing, frozen in Dean's tight grip.

Dean cuts the handshake short. Dean scrapes away the Devil's Trap.

'Castiel, the Angel of Thursday has 10 days before he joins the pit. Ta, darling.'

And with a flourish, a wave, a wink , Crowley is gone.

10 days.

Dean falls to his knees, feels grief leap over him in arctic frozen waves, icicles hitting the skin where his cheek meets the ground. His chest is hollow. He lets the waves fold over him, curls his knees against his chest at the thought of seeing Castiel's empty body on the ground.

He doesn't know why he feels this way. He's lost friends to battles before.

Perhaps it is because Castiel is no friend, but an unfortunate partner to share the frozen nights with, to replace the silver light of midnight with the amber glow of dawn, to replace the frigid touch of an empty bed with the subtle coziness of fireless firelight.

Dean does not know how long he lies there.

But it is now that he remembers what being cold feels like…

XxX

Dean returns in the early hours, when all are asleep.

All but one.

Castiel is waiting for him under the sheets.

Dean doesn't want to look at him as he sinks onto the mattress, peels his shirt from his marble chest and throws it on the floor. Dean feels himself shaking.

_This guy has 10 days before he's six feet. _Dean thinks.

'Is something wrong Dean?' Cas whispers into Dean's shoulder, balancing his chin on Dean's clavicle.

'No, Cas. Let's get some sleep.' Dean flips off the lamp and lies back in the bed, Castiel nuzzles Dean's neck and presses his chest flush against Dean's back, arm lacing protectively over Dean's waist.

The warmth of Castiel is calming, but is also sinister.

This is the heat of Hell. Dean cannot help but replay over and over again in his head the thought that Castiel is damned.

**A/N 9/10 Crossroads Demons found reviewing very satisfying. Side effects of reviewing include happy author, faster updating increased happiness, smiles and cookie. **


	6. Chapter 6

Day 1.

Castiel begins eating again.

Almost like he knows that he has limited time, that Dean is rushing and trying to make every single second worthwhile. Dean wakes Castiel up with a kiss on the forehead, something he's never done before. Makes Cas breakfast.

Nothing stays down though. Why should it?

Castiel's body is being poisoned by flames and sin, something once so holy now tainted and smattered and flaking. Like his wings were a force field to anything evil.

Dean supposes that it wasn't the wings, but God.

And now Cas has been kicked out of Heaven, just like Sam was essentially kicked out of the family when he went to Stanford.

The thought of Sam and Castiel being in essentially the same situation, but with differing degrees of intensity makes Dean's skin tighten.

XxX

Dean takes Castiel for a walk. Sam says he'll meet up with them eventually.

They trail back behind the scrapyard n paths that are scars on the old and abused earth, graveyards of cars and metal parts twisting up like modern art, melted and worn. Dean doesn't expect Castiel to last long on the walk, but the ex-angel seems fine enough to set a brisk pace.

Castiel asks where they're going.

Dean says he doesn't know.

It's autumn. Leaves move like fire, hues bleeding together to become a solid mass of gold and red, orange snaking through the colors in thin tendrils.

Dean thinks they look like Hellfire. He shakes his head. _No. _

_Think of Cas. _

Dean begins scratching inside himself, feels claws digging into his insides.

Castiel was an angel. He never had a childhood. He was deprived of so many things, like learning to drive and high school and eating glue in the back of the class and trying a cigarette and hating it and sex and bad jokes and the first breakup and…

Dean reels through all the things his e-x-angel never got to do, the list growing ever longer, ever sadder.

_Losing a tooth, having a blood sibling, the smell of Febreeze, owning a dog, having a fight with his dad, having a campfire, basketball on the playing court of an old motel, being bored at an art gallery, never having Christmas, never having a… _

Castiel never had a mom.

'Hey Cas?'

'Yes Dean?'

Dean swallows. 'Is there anything you want to do… now that you're… uh… human?'

Castiel looks at Dean quizzically, as if he had not realized he was human until now.

The wind rustles piles of dead leaves through the rusted corpses of old cars, makes the trench coat that seems 12 sizes too big billow around Castiel's feet, who's deep electric blue eyes are… confused.

'What would I possibly want to do?'

'You know… Get laid, get drunk, get high… normal human things.'

'I'd rather not partake in those particular branches of human life.'

Dean wants to throw his hands in the air, but settles for an uneasy laugh. Does the guy still think he has to be faithful to a religion and a father that literally _kicked him out_?

'You're _free_ Cas, for real. You can live your life however you want it.'

'What is left of my life, you mean.'

Dean freezes.

'What's that supposed to mean Cas?'

Castiel starts looking green, and he leans against the carcass of an old Honda, broken glass giving the busted window jagged teeth.

'I could smell Crowley on you when you came to bed yesterday. Or this morning. Whichever it was.' Castiel's mouth goes slack, his eyes fluttering, hand moving unconsciously towards his stomach.

'Cas, Crowley busted down our doors looking for you. Said he needed an angel to help with a little problem downstairs. We sent him packing.' Dean is worried by how easily lies to Castiel.

Not that his lie was a good one.

'Don't try and… deceive me Dean,' Castiel huffs, his face turning from green to white, 'I raised yu from Hell. I learned the way you… lie…'

Castiel heaves toast and hash browns onto the hard packed ground, and Dean is by his side in a second, hand on his back.

Sam chooses this moment to trot around the corner of the path, but stops abruptly when Dean silently waves a hand in the opposite direction, hoping this will ward off his giant of a brother.

Sam freezes when he sees Dean and mouths to his brother '_Bad time?'_

Dean stops his frantic waving and nods, giving his brother a meaningful look. Sam proceeds to walk away quietly.

'You done?' Dean asks as the puking subsides and Cas stands up, swiping a hand over his mouth.

'For now.'

Cas looks at Dean, and Dean's skin begins to prickle.

'How long do I have left?'

It takes all of Dean's cruelty and will power to tell him the truth. All he wants is to keep walking, go down to the creek where Bobby took him as a kid and taught him how to shoot a crossbow, wants to tell Castiel some crazy lie and for Cas to believe it.

He wants this responsibility to be someone else's.

But it's on his shoulders.

Dean reaches down and grabs Castiel's hand.

'9 days.'


	7. Chapter 7

**Warning! Swearing. **

Day 9.

It is on the ninth day that the group of hunters and the dying man research ways to cheat death.

Because frankly, there isn't much in the way of proof that Castiel is _in fact_ going to Hell. This could be Swine Flu or Avian Flu or something else completely and utterly human.

But half way through Castiel's ninth day, when Bobby and Sam have gone for air and Dean and Castiel are alone in the sea of codex bindings and tomes and scrolls and the friggin' _Bible_, Dean firmly declares _fuck it_ and throws the last of the old books to the floor with a quiet _whoosh_ of dust.

Castiel looks up as Dean paces uneasily, watches frustration and anger and sadness and disappointment make a dangerous mix in Dean's face. Dean is not at all pleased with the lack of information about fallen angels.

_Why should there be?_ Castiel thinks. _Angels seldom remember what they were before their fall from Grace. _

'Dean?' Castiel asks, voice meek. Dean looks over, eyes an angry watery color. The hunter is steamed and boiled anger, sterile and clean cut, sharpened like a hunting knife for easier cuts. Anger is something Dean must be used to by now. Anger and disappointment…

Dean punches the wall in his fury, over and over again, blood scrapes the wallpaper in brownish streaks, Dean's knuckles become a set of railroad tracks: cracked, crossing each other, droplets of blood oncoming trains as they spill in steadying streams on the floor.

'Dean. Dean!'

Cas rises from his seat on the couch and grabs Dean's wrist before the hunter's fist can connect with the brutalized wall again.

Heat comes off of Dean in angry waves, whereas it flows from Castiel in tendrils, twisting tentacles of flame that lick around the trench coat that Castiel would rather not wear, but wears to remind Dean that once he was an angel. If he can retain his image on the outside, perhaps he can retain it in Dean's mind.

Castiel thinks it's silly. But he does it anyway.

'You don't deserve this!' Dean screams at Castiel. 'Everything I touch _dies_! You were the one thing I couldn't break, the one damn thing that I could never _destroy_ and I've fucked that up too! You're burning because of me! If I hadn't made you rebel, you would still be an angel. And we'd still be hunting. And you'd still be the one thing I couldn't… burn…'

Castiel takes Dean's hands.

There was a time, when if he desired, he could heal the hunter of any affliction.

Stomach ache? No problem.

Lung cancer? Easy.

Perpetual coma? Given the right tools, it would be simple reverse.

But Castiel is only human now, and though he wishes he could wash the blood away with his Grace, he can't.

'Dean. I have lived a good li-'

'Don't…' Dean growls dejectedly, before pulling his hands away and prowling out the back door to join Bobby and Sam while they do… whatever.

Castiel picks up a codex off the floor in the silence of Dean's absence, and replaces it on a desk. The fallen angel sits in silence for a while before heading to the couch for a nap.

He falls asleep the only way he has learned how, listening to his own heartbeat in the silence.

XxX

Zachariah comes to Castiel in his dreams, while Cas sits on a bench and watches a golden river rush by, molten metal catching brilliantly in the sun and lighting the would-be water on fire. In fact, the whole forest is made of metal. Silver trees flicker in the setting sun, iron trunks catch the blues and pinks that blush and lick the clouds in the low hanging sky, sliver leaves _shinging _like unsheathing swords while the wind rustles them. Bronze birds flitter and croak without charm to each other. Even the bench is not made of real wood, but has been whittled and worked into a believable shape and smooth texture out of cobalt.

'Is this what your Heaven would look like, brother?' Zachariah asks, sitting beside Castiel on the bench.

'I would not know. And I never shall.'

'I can still save you, you know.' Zachariah looks meaningfully at the side of Castiel's face, 'You don't have to die.'

Castiel does not look at him. His voice is emotionless as he says, 'And in return for my Grace you would have me forget the Winchesters. You would have me forget everything, turn me back into the obedient soldier I was before.' Later, Zachariah will understand that what is missing in Castiel's voice is fire. The fallen angel is finished. He is done.

Zachariah nods slowly, eyes hungry and never still. 'That is an appropriate price, I believe.'

'No it isn't.' Castiel's voice is so level, so calm.

Zachariah's eyes flash, and he raises his hands at the liquid gold. The river begins moving faster, rapids swirling and splashing, droplets searing Castiel's skin with a sizzle.

'You forget, little brother, that I can make you suffer more.' Castiel does not turn to look at the angel, so Zachariah grabs him by the throat, eyes a blinding white, 'How's about I just kill you right now?'

This is the majesty of an angel. An angel must possess both staggering beauty and dangerous power for the unruly and the sinful.

Zachariah's Grace uncurls and begins exploring Castiel's body, memorizing the fallen angel, a searing white pureness that is supple as smoke and as deadly as a whiplash.

The metal forest begins to reverberate with the earthquake the superior angel's Grace brings.

Pain ricochets throughout Castiel's body, elastic burns racing through his veins in blazing trails, his insides rearranging themselves into a jigsaw mess, and Castiel's screams echo through the metal forest like an explosion.

'Flay you alive once you wake up?' Zachariah's voice pushes through Castiel's pain.

Castiel feels his skin loosen and rip.

'Send you into a never ending coma?'

Castiel's limbs become impossibly heavy, and his eyelids feel like they have been weighted down with lead.

'Pull out your lungs?'

All the air in Castiel's body evaporates.

'Or I could just take away your senses, increase your fever shorten your 9 days to 2. How does that sound?'

'N…No!' Castiel manages, but then the burning golds and silvers become edged with images of Bobby's living room, of books and dust.

Castiel is waking up.

Zachariah senses this too, and withdraws his Grace painfully from Castiel's sleeping form.

Zachariah's roar echoes through Castiel's head as he sits up, fully awake and alert, in Bobby's living room. 'Remember my offer, little brother. I assure you it is much better than going to the Pit.'

XxX

'What will you do Dean? When I die?' Castiel asks when Dean returns from a walk out in the junkyard.

'Cas…'

'Will you remember me?'

'I won't have to, because we're gonna find a way out of this, like we always do.'

'You can't raise me from Hell, Dean.'

'Why not?'

'You know why.'

'No I really don't! You're human now! The rules should work the same!'

Dean storms out of the kitchen and Castiel only manages to catch him by the arm. 'Zachariah made me an offer.'

Dean's face both falls and rises. 'What did he offer you?'

'My Grace.'

'In return for?'

'All the memories I have of you, Sam and the past two years.'

Dean inhales sharply before saying, with as little emotion as possible. 'Take the offer.'

Castiel has never heard the hunter's voice so defeated.

'No.'

'Castiel!'

'I don't want to live forever as a blind soldier. I would rather live 8 days free and dying. Free and dying, with the only family that has ever cared about me.'

The silence that follows is the most weighted silence of Castiel's long life.

It is a silence that rivals Heaven's in the absence of laughter.

It is a silence that rivals Hell's in the absence of screams.

It is a silence that rivals the Inbetween's in the absence of the crying of spirits.

The silence is filled with the cracking of the screen door as Sam walks in.

Dean rushes out of the kitchen at the sight of his brother, ripping his arm out of Castiel's grasp, a single silver tear shining in the corner of his eye.

It takes a minute for Sam to ask, 'What did I just walk in on?'

'I believe Dean has just realized I cannot be saved.'

**A/N Remember to leave a review! **


	8. Chapter 8

Day 8 Part 1

They spend day 8 in fevered silence. The is a subtle sweetness in the quiet, a high pitched crescendo in the vacuum that has risen in the exact center of Bobby's house. There is the silence in the basement, in the panic room, and the silence travels up the stairs, curls around the kitchen, and comes to rest behind Bobby's desk. Almost like the quiet falls asleep there.

Something comes over Bobby's house, like a cloud.

And that cloud is the Minnesota Moon Fist.

It's a new thing. This is its first year, but so far, things are going good for the demon fight club.

It's the one stop shop for all things snaggle-toothed and pointed tailed.

It takes place in an old fairground, when the moon is full. Through the sewers, demons come. Hundreds of them.

Shifters. Vampires. Werewolves. Common demons. Demigods. Changelings. Fairies.

Crawling. Skittering. Leaking their slime and whooping like howler monkeys. They crawl through the fair, lick the places humans touched with black tongues, gut the rides, run cracked fingers over the seats of rollercoasters. They feast on virgins and children from surrounding areas, no matter what species, loving the way the air stinks on a full moon.

The werewolves keep mostly to the Log Flume, a closed off area where they can rip and slice and tear. Vampires drink victims dry by the wooden roller coaster on the opposite end of the park. Everyone else finds space in between. The lovebirds watch from the Ferris wheel while down on the ground, it's an all-out war. Whoever survives long enough, claims the prize.

"-and we know a guy, who's friendly with a demon who knows the organizers. So pretty much every hunter on this side of the whole damn _world_ is getting his or her shit together, and high-tailing it over there, because in two days, Cas…"

Dean makes googly eyes and grabs Castiel's shoulders.

"-it's the Grand Slam."

Dean grabs some more clothes, T-shirts, jeans, and shoves them into the duffel bag. Castiel watches

"And you are… excited about this?"

Dean looks back incredulously, T-shirt in hand. "It's the biggest hunt of the _century_, Cas! Well, other than the Devil, but besides that it's definitely going to be the most fun. Vamps losing their heads. Shifters burning to a crisp. Demon's getting exorcized. Sam and I are gonna get to see hunters we haven't seen since our dad was alive."

"Sam's going with you too?"

"And Bobby."

Cas could not feel his face fall, but he knew instantly that Dean saw his dismay.

"Cas, it's only for a day and a half. You won't even notice we're gone. I would rather not do this, really, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited."

Castiel nods. "I understand."

He doesn't.

When the three hunters pile their things into the back of their cars, Dean hands Castiel a paper with every emergency number the hunter can think of.

"Don't hesitate to call."

"I know Dean." Cas says. He is surprised when Dean hugs him goodbye.

XxX

Now, most would think that Castiel would spend the day tucked into the folds of the silence of Bobby's house.

But instead, he doesn't.

Instead, he takes advantage of Bobby's extensive magical ingredients stash, slices his hand with a silver blade and lets the blood fall in the center of the sigil. He then chants some Enochian, and le voila!

"Dear God Cas, you look like fried and pickled crap."

"Good to see you too, Balthazar."

**A/N I'll post parts 2 and 3 when they… you know… get done. I'm chopping this into three bits because I think we should get to see what goes down and the Minnesota Moon Fist. Something tells me it'll be quite an event. **

**Oops. Spoilers ;)**

**Remember to leave a review! **


	9. Chapter 9

Dean can't stop thinking. His thoughts are a merry-go-round of worry and worst-case scenarios, what-ifs and how-comes

_We should have brought Cas. _

_No you shouldn't have. _

_Why not? _

_He'd be a liability. _

_Then why did you go at all? _

_Because it's the biggest __**fucking**__hunt of the century!_

_Besides icing the flipping __**Devil**__ and you did that too!_

_I'm the best hunter in the world! _

_That remains to be proven. And besides, last I checked Allison and Sawyer Parker had better funds, have killed more bastards and could take even you down in a fight. _

_Well we'll just test that out when we see them, now won't we!_

_What if something goes wrong back at the house? What if Cas gets attacked by an angel, or a bear walks in and eats him. _

_We've got angel wards. And there are no bears near Bobby's place, Bobby killed them all. _

_What if he takes the wards down? What if he wants to say goodbye to an angel friend or something? _

_Cas won't do that. _

_What if he does? _

_He won't. _

_Fine, what if he chokes on his own puke? _

Dean can't come up with a way out of this one and it is in that lull between new, terrifying thought and counterpoint, that he realizes that Bobby has been talking about how-

'-and most importantly, this hunting spree is not a competition, no matter what anyone else says. If anyone asks you how many bastards you killed, say 'I lost count.' And walk away. And, Dean, don't let anyone ruffle you. The Parker Twins have had it in for you since they first heard about Azazel.'

'No they haven't!' Sam says, 'They're nice people, guys.'

'Bullshit.' Bobby growls from the back seat, 'All in all, I guess what I'm trying to say is shoot straight, and Dean, be nice.'

Dean rolls his eyes and shifts his shoulders.

'How come you never tell Sammy to be nice?'

XxX

'My dear, Zachariah certainly put you through a ringer didn't he?'

Balthazar waves his hand and a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket appears on Bobby's desk. He offers Castiel a glass, but the ex-angel raises a hand, declining.

'That will not end well.' He says.

Balthazar cocks his head and looks Cas in the face, and Cas watches as understanding unfolds on Balthazar's face like a flower.

'You can't eat,' He says simply, 'Can you sleep?' There is worry in Balthazar's voice. Castiel shakes his head.

Castiel watches Balthazar's vessel sag, the human's face, with too many lines to be fit for the magic of Balthazar, droop.

Castiel remembers fondly how they had once fought together in Heaven's wars, how Balthazar had been by Castiel's side for those forty years in Hell, had joked about the state the humans in the Pit had found themselves in.

In all truth, Balthazar had made it to Dean first, but had allowed his brother the great and terrible honor of mending the broken soul of the Winchester boy, because Balthazar knew that too much love would turn Castiel into a fighter, not a soldier.

Castiel should thank him for that.

This angel, in the aging vessel, has been Castiel's friend for millennia. And now that those millennia will soon amount to only dust, Castiel does not feel right simply slipping away for good without saying goodbye.

'I am plagued by nightmares of tigers that turn black whenever they touch a shadow. I see the sword that Zachariah used to steal my Grace and then I wake up.'

It is plain that Zachariah did not boast of Castiel's failing health.

There is a flutter, and Balthazar stands in front of Castiel, pressing his forehead against the ex-… no… not ex-angel… _human_'s forehead. Castiel is shocked by how cold Balthazar is. It seems that, wrapped up in the quiet nostalgia of death and warmth and illness and humanity, Castiel has forgotten the cold.

'Castiel, my dearest friend. How long does the Demon King say you have?'

Castiel pulls away.

'How do you…-'

Balthazar sips his drink and says, 'We run into each other every now and then.'

Castiel nods. '8 days.'

'Well,' Balthazar smiles, 'Let's make this one count.'

XxX

Dean hates the Parker Twins.

Allison is tall, not Sam tall, but tall enough so that Dean has issues looking her in the eyes. Tall, with long ginger hair and a rugged look about her, and skin so pale it's almost translucent. She has a recklessly sloping nose and rough chin, and eyes so calculating they remind Dean of Castiel. If there is one thing her eyes say about her, it's that she's whip smart.

If she wasn't a total bitch, maybe Dean would have screwed her by now.

She is all spitfire and charisma, has a fluidity in her voice that speaks volumes about her intelligence, and her love of ripping and shredding is only matched by her love of her brother.

Sawyer is as to her as day is to night. He is calm, fluid, with curly hair and soft eyes. He is everything his sister is not.

Whenever Bobby hears Dean complain about them, how smart they are, or how lame they are, or how a glock is less fun to load than a shotgun, the elder hunter claps him upside the head and says sternly,

'They are exactly like you and your brother, only they chose this life.'

Maybe that's why Dean hates them. They chose this Hell, whereas he and Sam were raised to be the flames that fuel the hunter life. It is precisely for this reason that Dean is not sure he'll enjoy the 'gathering' of Hunters about half a town over, to discuss plans and such about their attack.

It turns out Dean is right.

While aged men with grizzled faces and missing body parts hold up maps, Dean spots Sam talking to the two of them, and they laugh at something he says and exchange opposite stories. Allie talks with her hands. Sawyer speaks through his silence.

He doesn't know why he stalks over, and he listens mutely from behind a corner.

First they talk about recent events. The Parker twins joke about not being invited to the Devil party, Sam says it wasn't that eventful and Sawyer starts up on a group of Wendigos killing people off in a small isolated town. Then Sam says the last time he hunted a Wendigo, he and Dean were hunting alone-

'So you picked someone else up, other than Bobby?' Dean hears Sawyer ask.

'Ye-yeah. A friend who helped Dean out a of a sticky situation.'

'What kind of sticky are we talking about?' Allie laughs. Dean freezes.

Sam takes a moment to respond, and that is all it takes for both the Parkers to let out long and painful _ooohs. _

'So this friend and Dean. They're, like… an item?'

Sam says nothing.

'Damn,' Allie says, 'I was looking forward to riding that ass on this hunt!'

Dean barely feels himself slide around the corner, anger bubbling in the pit of his stomach like some kind of toxic gas. The thought that he and that _bitch_ would actually _do it_, sends ice into Dean's veins. He grabs his brother's arm and ferries him deeper into the crowd, leaving the Parker twins exchanging glances.

'Dean, look, I'm sorry.' Sam starts.

'Yeah, whatever.' Is all he can manage.

XxX

'-and then Hester, and, you know Hester, all glory and 'hand me that blade' and battle born, looks up at me and says 'Dibs?'!'

Castiel doubles over again laughter spilling from him in heaving, cramping loads. Balthazar curls and uncurls his legs as laughing spasms roll over him, one hand trying to keep the champagne from spilling, the other waving through the air like a lasso.

'A-And what d-did Jacob say?' Castiel asks through tears, clutching his sides, which feel like they're about to split open.

Balthazar reins in his laughter and says in a mock French accent, 'Oui, oui.'

They both explode again, spilling chuckles like drinks, and Castiel notes that the silence that filled Bobby's house has left to find a less crowded place to sleep since Balthazar's arrival. Castiel's friend has filled the empty spaces the silence left behind with the smell of generously applied cologne and laugh lines.

Castiel has missed this. The companionship his brothers offer.

His thought is interrupted by a phone ringing. It isn't one of Bobby's hunter phones, so Castiel looks for cell phone Dean gave him. He finds it behind the couch he and Balthazar have been sitting on, and heaven knows how it got there.

He flips it open without even looking at the caller ID. He knows it's Dean.

'Hello?'

'Yeah, hey, Cas.' Dean says, his voice grainy.

'Dean, how are you? How are Sam and Bobby?'

'Fine, we're all fine Cas. How are things? Are you OK?'

'Yes, everything is fine here.'

'How's your fever?'

'It has subsided a bit.'

'Good… that's good.'

' The hunt begins tomorrow, doesn't it?'

'Yeah, it does…' Dean trails off on the other line, and in the background of static, Castiel can hear traffic. Dean is outside. Perhaps he doesn't want people to hear what he is about to say.

'Then I don't really understand the reason for this call, other than to check in.' Castiel says bluntly.

Balthazar sits quietly on the couch, watching Castiel and smiling slightly. Castiel knows he is listening to the entire conversation, as he still remains a celestial being.

'I just wanted to call… you know… in case I don't make it back tomorrow, I just wanted you to know, that I uh…'

The pause spans much longer than any of the others, and Castiel has grown used to the boisterous noise of Balthazar the past day, and therefore feels the need to fill the silence.

'Dean, I cannot speak as assuredly as I could when I was an angel, but I believe with all of my remaining power that you will live through this hunt. You did, after all, defeat the Devil.'

'Yeah, I guess,' Dean sighs, 'Well, guess I'd better hit the hay. Take it easy alright?'

'I will.'

'Okay, good. I love you Cas.'

XxX

The words are out before he even knows he's said them. He does not even know where they come from, he's not even sure if he means them or not, but either way they collapse out of him.

Perhaps he says them because in Castiel's absence, he has returned to the dust and dirt and silver coolness of his hunter life.

He's cold again, and despite himself he misses Castiel's warmth beside him in the morning and at night. Or perhaps the stress has finally corroded him, the stress of imminent but subsiding realization that Castiel is _dying._ The man is burning, no matter what the fever says, and soon, this will all mean nothing.

But he says it anyway, whether he's lying or telling the truth.

XxX

'I love you too, Dean.'

Castiel does not even hesitate.

He has been in love with Dean Winchester since he first bound them together in the Pit, when he stole the soul from the flames and put in back together like a life sized jigsaw puzzle.

XxX

Dean goes back to the cold of motel, passes a sleeping Sam who is snoring softly. He lays down, feels the freeze of the bedsprings, the frost of stained sheets.

Big day tomorrow.

Big day…

**A/N *Balthazar x Castiel 5ever***

**Everytime I make about how 'the silence' has left the house I always think of the Doctor Who creatur-**

**What was I saying? **

**Oh, yes, sorry. Big hunt tomorrow, who's gonna die? Leave a review on your way out if you want them to live! *points gun at Word Doc***


	10. Chapter 10

Carnage?

Pfft.

Dean's seen enough of that to last him into the afterlife. Dean's seen enough death, enough sadness, to last the world into the afterlife. He never gets tired of it.

He was born, he is sure of it, to kill. Since he was young, his father had taught him the art of blood and bone, taught him the way a pulse stops, the way a dead circulatory system rises into a vampire, the way a werewolf dies over and over again during a transformation, and beyond that, the way a man falls.

Dean Winchester is schooled on the art of blood, he has memorized the way it looks on white sheets.

Dean Winchester has been taught the art of bone, and he knows far too many ways to make it break.

This exposure to violence was only increased when he was sent to Hell.

There, he learned other things.

He learned about flames, about smoke, learned the way a soul flinches away, learned the way suffering creeps under your skin, and how down in the Pit, blacked-out eyes meant power, not plague. He learned how to pull teeth from skulls, how to carve apologies and sins from the meat of a thigh and he learned how to make that fragile human pulse curl inside out.

Dean Winchester took what he learned from his father, and turned it backwards, fashioned it into a spear and stuck it through humanity's heart.

But damn if this isn't something new…

Minnesota's moon flashes it's cold midnight grin down on the fairground.

Carnage?

This demon fight club is crawling with it. Demons are leaping through the air, snaggle-toothed grins and black tongues scraping up corpses as they slink towards new victims, hunters are falling like flies, but then again, so are demons, so are werewolves, so are vampires, so are fairies.

Dean slices through a female vampire's head as she reveals her fangs and aims for his shoulder, feels vertebrae separate beneath his blade, feels blood spurt onto his already blood smattered face.

Somehow he and Sam got separated when they broke into the fairground. Dean headed straight for the Ferris Wheel, and Dean thinks that Sam went towards the Log Flume.

But Dean's not worried. Sam's got this.

…Okay, maybe he's scared out of his wits, but Sam did kill the Devil.

He'll be fine.

XxX

He touches the feathers as they fall.

Castiel closes his eyes and thinks of Heaven.

XxX

Dean feels his wrist snap under the weight of the werewolf's body, as the writhing creature falls on him from a raised sign with directions on it. Dean screams in pain, feels his bones scrape together beneath his skin. He hardly feels his shotgun as it bucks against the werewolf's back.

Perfect center on the heart. Dean flips the animal off his chest, stands up weakly, his left arm completely useless.

Dean sees Sam behead a vampire, sees the way the gigantic hunter limps slightly, eyes unfocused. Bobby is ripping a demon blade through a succubus's ribcage. Dean stumbles towards a demon, arm hanging loosely at his side.

XxX

Balthazar stumbles.

Wings burn themselves onto the floor.

XxX

Dean barely feels alive. He feels out of time, like this is something he isn't supposed to be doing, as if he has somewhere more important to be, numbness and haziness and warmth seeping through his veins and turning him, ever so carefully, to stone.

Something isn't right.

His fighting becomes reflexive, practiced… not his…

Something is gravely, deeply, soulfully wrong.

Something is pulling at his atoms, ripping through his cells, trying to force it's way in. Pressure finds his chest as he slices through a kitsune's heart, his breath leaves him, his vision fogs, his thoughts slow.

XxX

Castiel watches Balthazar's eyes close.

He had no idea that such a sadness could be so pure.

XxX

'Bobby, something's wrong.' He barely feels himself say it. Bobby turns to him heatedly, excitement and overwhelming adrenaline plain in his face.

'What the hell do you want me to do then, Princess?' Bobby pulls a pistol from his belt and shoots an oncoming werewolf in the heart, barely looking at Dean.

Dean's heart flutters a tattoo against his ribs, and he grabs Bobby's jacket, his left hand, despite the pain the broken bone causes him, grips his shirt above his heart.

Is this a heart attack? Dean wonders. Has my reckless drinking and eating finally caught up to me?

Chaos reigns down around them. Dean simply watches it happen.

Everything is running. Demons launch themselves off of decorative rocks a rides to try and jump the fence, vampires trying to claw their way through the barrier at the front of the park, minutes passing like seconds until the moon goes down and the werewolves die over and over again as they return to their human bodies, and Dean is _barely here. _

The presence pushing through his defences shoots him with crippling pressure and pulsing warmth, bends his ribs and curves his spine, makes his whole body beat with his heart.

Dean Winchester is afraid.

XxX

Cas puts the phone down.

This is the climax, he thinks. We can only fall from here.

XxX

Dean fights through it, this heart attack. He kills, and smites, rips and shreds, teams up with the Parkers to block off the sewer system where demons unwilling to fight the onslaught of hunters skitter into, feeling their way through labyrinths of tunnels and stone.

It all becomes routine after that. The ripping. The shredding. And soon, the pressure fades from Dean, the presence recedes, and Dean feels the fibers of his flesh bind together again, feels his body seal itself off, as if the presence simply bent the walls as it tried to enter him.

In hindsight, Dean will call it a possession.

In the future, Dean will commit the heat to memory. Memorize the way it pulled him apart so gently, bent him with its power and probing fingers.

He will begin looking back on this hunt, when he gets back to Bobby's cabin. Begin writing down the way the presence felt, begin cataloging everything he can remember, from this day, from this minute.

_This is the climax. _

_We can only fall from here._

XxX

The dust settles.

The silence pokes it's nose in through the broken windows, slinks in through a crack in the wall, steps gently over the still figures, curls up beneath Bobby's desk, and falls asleep.

The quiet, has never been so deafening.

XxX

'Sam. We need to go. **Now.**' Dean throws a few of Sam's things into his duffel bag to demonstrate, face red.

'Dean, wait, holdup,' Sam says, as Dean turns around and starts packing his own things, 'What's going on?'

'It's Cas. Something happened at the house.'

Sam's mouth falls open, mind reeling. 'How do you know?' Is all he can muster, his hands stuffing things into his duffel by their own accord.

'There was this message on my phone. An-and he's not picking up when I call him, and dude… can we just get out of here? I'll let you listen to it in the car but, _please_ man, we gotta go.'

'Well, do you know what happened?'

Dean eyes are watering in frustration and slowly breaching horror, shoulders shaking as he says in a hiss, 'Zachariah'.

XxX

For a moment there is nothing, just static. Then, like cracking ice, Castiel's voice separates the background, making way for something Sam Winchester is not prepared for.

'_Dean… I shou-should have known you wo-wouldn't pick up. But that's not of import right now. I just… I just wanted to call and tell you what happened, because, if you stumbled in on me like… like this without… without knowing what happened, well… I don't want that. _

_God! It hurts… _

_So I might as well start with how this happened. _

_I took the… angel wards down yesterday because I needed to say… say goodbye to Balthazar… But, this… this morning, when I woke up…Zachariah was there. H-he had followers with h-him. The-they made me watch them… kill Balthazar… and then Hester… well…_

_Let's just say the wound is far more impressive than the one that bled my Grace. A-and it won't stop bleeding and… and… _

_I just don't want to die… alone that is…'_

Castiel's voice falls off the static, and for a moment Sam thinks that this is the end of the message, and that this is the end of it all, but he hears Castiel gathering breath in the background.

'_Humans don't know this but… an angel blade is made of a feather of the angel that bears the blade itself. Which means that one of my feathers is in the angel blade in the trunk of the Impala. That is a part of me. _

_I'm going to become a spirit, temporarily, if fallen angels are given such an option. I need to say goodbye, Dean. I need you know, more than anything, that I love you. I may even try to possess you, try to help you with the fight, if I can. But I need you to know… that none of this is your fault. None of this could ever be your fault. It took everything to get me here, absolutely… everything… and you and Sam… are not to blame…_

_You two made… made my… my life worth…_

The gaps between his words become longer and longer, and in between the static and the breaths that could be Castiel's last, Sam hates himself for thinking, _damn, this is one long voicemail._

And then the message ends, and all Sam can hear, is silence.

XxX

When they pull up on Bobby's driveway, Sam's heart is heavy.

When Dean unlocks the door with fumbling fingers, breath shallow, Sam's stomach drops through the floor.

Dean is already wiping tears away when he bursts through the door, passes Balthazar's body, collecting the ashes of wings on his boots. Sam watches Dean bend over a broken body, sees Castiel's phone slip from limp hands.

Sam had often imagined, with regret, what all their deaths would look like. He had already seen Dean's death, and after all of the grief, Sam could appreciate that Dean's death had been fit for the man he was. A final battle, fit for a seasoned hunter. All bloody and murky, like city rivers.

He imagines his own will be less extravagant, a simple death. A knife through the gut, a bullet to the brain, something pure and wholesome. He shudders as he thinks this.

As if any death could be _wholesome. _

But he never imagined Castiel's to be this… muted. He was and angel after all, pure electricity and worship trapped in a human vessel. His death should have been grand, explosive, all white light and knightly action.

But instead he is reduced to empty blue eyes and a copper blood smile.

Sam supposes that his wings weren't seared onto the floor because they had already burned.

Burned.

Sam's mouth falls open. Castiel is in Hell _right now. _

Nausea pools in Sam's insides, and he has to lean against the door frame, only to see Balthazar's vacant grey eyes staring up at him blankly. He can't stay here. Dean's shoulders are shivering, and shudders send the silence of the house away. Sam decides to go wait on the porch for Bobby, so Dean can be alone with his…

Angel, Sam thinks firmly.

So he can be alone with his _angel_.

**A/N **** This is not the final chapter. We have one more to go after this one, and then I say adieu. Please leave a review. You can tell me this chapter sucks, that you hate my guts, whatever really, but I do so love to hear from readers. **


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